It was then that I had seen on her forehead the Seal of Solomon, the mark of the personal family of the Prophet. 'Your pardon, Elder Sister. I did not see.'

'I am not annoyed.' It had seemed to me that she invited conversation. I knew that it was not proper for us to converse privately; her mortal being was dedicated to the Prophet just as her soul was the Lord's, but I was young and lonely-and she was young and very pretty.

'Do you attend the Holy One this night, Elder Sister?'

She had shaken her head at that. 'No, the honor pa.s.sed me by. My lot was not drawn.'

'It must be a great and wonderful privilege to serve him directly.'

'No doubt, though I cannot say of my own knowledge. My lot has never yet been drawn.' She had added impulsively, 'I'm a little nervous about it. You see, I haven't been here long.'

Even though she .was my senior in rank, her display of feminine weakness had touched me. 'I am sure that you will deport yourself with credit.'

'Thank you.'

We had gone on chatting. She had been in New Jerusalem, it developed, even less time than had I. She had been reared on a farm in upper New York State and there she had been sealed to the Prophet at the Albany Seminary. In turn I had told her that 1 had been born in the middle west, not fifty miles from the Well of Truth, where the First Prophet was incarnated. I then told her that my name was John Lyle and she had answered that she was called Sister Judith.

I had forgotten all about the warden-of-the-watch and his pesky rounds and was ready to chat all night, when my chrono had chimed the quarter hour. 'Oh, dear!' Sister Judith had exclaimed. 'I should have gone straight back to my cell.' She had started to hurry away, then had checked herself. 'You wouldn't tell on me, John Lyle?'

'Me? Oh, never!'

I had continued to think about her the rest of the watch. When the warden did make rounds I was a shade less than alert.

A mighty little on which to found a course of folly, eh? A single drink is a great amount to a teetotaler; I was not able to get Sister Judith out of my mind. In the month that followed I saw her half a dozen times. Once I pa.s.sed her on an escalator; she was going down as I was going up. We did not even speak, but she had recognized me and smiled. I rode that escalator all night that night in my dreams, hut I could never get off and speak to her. The other encounters were just as trivial. Another time I heard her voice call out to me quietly, 'h.e.l.lo, John Lyle,' and I turned just in time to see a hooded figure go past my elbow through a door. Once I watched her feeding the swans in the moat; I did not dare approach her but I think that she saw me.

The Temple Herald printed the duty lists of both my service and hers. I was standing a watch in five; the Virgins drew lots once a week. So it was just over a month later that our watches again matched. I saw her name-and vowed that I would win the guard mount that evening and again be posted at the post of honor before the Prophet's own apartments. I had no reason to think that Judith would seek me out on the rampart-but I was sure in my heart that she would. Never at West Point had I ever expended more spit-and-polish; I could have used my buckler for a shaving mirror.

But here it was nearly half past ten and no sign of Judith, although I had heard the Virgins gather down the corridor promptly at ten. All I had to show for my efforts was the poor privilege of standing watch at the coldest post in the Palace.

Probably, I thought glumly, she comes out to flirt with the guardsmen on watch every time she has a chance. I recalled bitterly that all women were vessels of iniquity and had always been so since the Fall of Man. Who was I to think that she had singled me out for special friendship? She had probably considered the night too cold to bother.

I heard a footstep and my heart leaped with joy. But it was only the warden making his rounds. I brought my pistol to the ready and challenged him; his voice came back, 'Watchman, what of the night?'

I answered mechanically, 'Peace on Earth,' and added, 'It is cold, Elder Brother.'

'Autumn in the air,' he agreed. 'Chilly even in the Temple.' He pa.s.sed on by with his pistol and his bandolier of paralysis bombs slapping his armor to his steps. He was a nice old duffer and usually stopped for a few friendly words; tonight he was probably eager to get back to the warmth of the guardroom. I went back to my sour thoughts.

'Good evening, John Lyle.'

I almost jumped out of my boots. Standing in the darkness just inside the archway was Sister Judith. I managed to splutter, 'Good evening, Sister Judith,' as she moved toward me.

'Ssh!' she cautioned me. 'Someone might hear us. John Lyle-it finally happened. My lot was drawn!'

I said, 'Huh?' then added lamely, 'Felicitations, Elder Sister. May G.o.d make his face to shine on your holy service.'

'Yes, yes, thanks,' she answered quickly, 'but John . . . I had intended to steal a few moments to chat with you. Now I can't-I must be at the robing room for indoctrination and prayer almost at once. I must run.'

'You'd better hurry,' I agreed. I was disappointed that she could not stay, happy for her that she was honored, and exultant that she had not forgotten me. 'G.o.d go with you.'

'But I just had to tell you that I had been chosen.' Her eyes were shining with what I took to be holy joy; her next words startled me. 'I'm scared, John Lyle.'

'Eh? Frightened?' .1 suddenly recalled how I had felt, how my voice had cracked, the first time I ever drilled a platoon. 'Do not be. You will be sustained.'

'Oh, I hope so! Pray for me, John.' And she was gone, lost in the dark corridor.

I did pray for her and I tried to imagine where she was, what she was doing. But since I knew as little about what went on inside the Prophet's private chambers as a cow knows about courts-martial, I soon gave it up and simply thought about Judith. Later, an hour or more, my reverie was broken by a high scream inside the Palace, followed by a commotion, and running footsteps. I dashed down the inner corridor and found a knot of women gathered around the portal to the Prophet's apartments. Two or three others were carrying someone out the portal; they stopped when the reached the corridor and eased their burden to the floor.

'What's the trouble?' I demanded and drew my side arm clear.

An elderly Sister stepped in front of me. 'It is nothing. Return to your post, legate.'

'I heard a scream.'

'No business of yours. One of the Sisters fainted when the Holy One required service of her.'

'Who was it?'

'You are rather nosy, little brother.' She shrugged. 'Sister Judith, if it matters.'

I did not stop to think but snapped, 'Let me help her!' and started forward. She barred my way.

'Are you out of your mind? Her sisters will return her to her cell. Since when do the Angels minister to nervous Virgins?'

I could easily have pushed her aside with one finger, but she was right. I backed down and went unwillingly back to my post.

For the next few days I could not get Sister Judith out of my mind. Off watch, I prowled the parts of the Palace I was free to visit, hoping to catch sight of her. She might be ill, or she might be confined to her cell for what must certainly have been a major breach of discipline. But I never saw her.

My roommate, Zebadiah Jones, noticed my moodiness and tried to rouse me out of it. Zeb was three cla.s.ses senior to me and I had been one of his plebes at the Point; now he was my closest friend and my only confidant. 'Johnnie old son, you look like a corpse at your own wake. What's eating on you?'

'Huh? Nothing at all. Touch of indigestion, maybe.'

'So? Come on, let's go for a walk. The air will do you good.' I let him herd me outside. He said nothing but ba.n.a.lities until we were on the broad terrace surrounding the south turret and free of the danger of eye and ear devices. When we were well away from anyone else he said softly, 'Come on. Spill it.'

'Shucks, Zeb, I can't burden anybody else with it.'

'Why not? What's a friend for?'

'Uh, you'd be shocked.'

'I doubt it. The last time I was shocked was when I drew four of a kind to an ace kicker. It restored my faith in miracles and I've been relatively immune ever since. Come on-we'll call this a privileged communication-elder adviser and all that sort of rot.'

I let him persuade me. To my surprise Zeb was not shocked to find that I let myself become interested in a holy deaconess. So I told him the whole story and added to it my doubts and troubles, the misgivings that had been growing in me since the day I reported for duty at New Jerusalem.

He nodded casually. 'I can see how it would affect you that way, knowing you. See here, you haven't admitted any of this at confession, have you?'

'No,' I admitted with embarra.s.sment.

'Then don't. Nurse your own fox. Major Bagby is broadminded, you wouldn't shock him-but he might find it necessary to pa.s.s it on to his superiors. You wouldn't want to face Inquisition even if you were alabaster innocent. In fact, especially since you are innocent-and you are, you know; everybody has impious thoughts at times. But the Inquisitor expects to find sin; if he doesn't find it, he keeps on digging.'

At the suggestion that I might be put to the Question my stomach almost turned over. I tried not to show it for Zeb went on calmly, 'Johnnie my lad, I admire your piety and~ your innocence, but I don't envy it. Sometimes too much piety is more of a handicap than too little. You find yourself shocked at the idea that it takes politics as well as psalm singing to run a big country. Now take me; I noticed the same things when I was new here, but I hadn't expected anything different and wasn't shocked.'

'But-'I shut up. His remarks sounded painfully like heresy; I changed the subject. 'Zeb, what do you suppose it could have been that upset Judith so and caused her to faint the night she served the Prophet?'

'Eh? How should I know?' He glanced at me and looked away.

'Well, I just thought you might. You generally have all the gossip around the Palace.'

'Well . . . oh, forget it, old son. It's really not important.'

'Then you do know?'

'I didn't say that. Maybe I could make a close guess, but you don't want guesses. So forget it.'

I stopped strolling, stepped in front of him and faced him. 'Zeb, anything you know about it-or can guess-I want to hear. It's important to me.'

'Easy now! You were afraid of shocking me; it could be that I don't want to shock you.'

'What do you mean? Tell me!'

'Easy, I said. We're out strolling, remember, without a care in the world, talking about our b.u.t.terfly collections and wondering if we'll have stewed beef again for dinner tonight.'

Still fuming, I let him take me along with him. He went on more quietly, 'John, you obviously aren't the type to learn things just by keeping your ear to the ground-and you've not yet studied any of the Inner Mysteries, now have you?'

'You know I haven't. The psych cla.s.sification officer hasn't cleared me for the course. I don't know why.'

'I should have let you read some of the installments while I was boning it. No, that was before you graduated. Too bad, for they explain things in much more delicate language than I know how to use-and justify every bit of it thoroughly, if you care for the dialectics of religious theory. John, what is your notion of the duties of the Virgins?'

'Why, they wait on him, and cook his food, and so forth.'

'They surely do. And so forth. This Sister Judith-an innocent little country girl the way you describe her. Pretty devout, do you think?'

I answered somewhat stiffly that her devoutness had first attracted me to her. Perhaps I believed it.

'Well, it could be that she simply became shocked at overhearing a rather worldly and cynical discussion between the Holy One and, oh, say the High Bursar-taxes and t.i.thes and the best way to squeeze them out of the peasants. It might be something like that, although the scribe for such a conference would hardly be a gra.s.s-green Virgin on her first service. No, it was almost certainly the "And so forth."'

'Huh? I don't follow you.'

Zeb sighed. 'You really are one of G.o.d's innocents, aren't you? Holy Name, I thought you knew and were just to stubbornly straight-laced to admit it. Why, even the Angels carry on with the Virgins at times, after the Prophet is through with them. Not to mention the priests and the deacons. I remember a time when-'He broke off suddenly, catching sight of my face. 'Wipe that look off your face! Do you want somebody to notice us?'

I tried to do so, with terrible thoughts jangling around inside my head. Zeb went on quietly, 'It's my guess, if it matters that much to you, that your friend Judith still merits the t.i.tle "Virgin" in the purely physical sense as well as the spiritual. She might even stay that way, if the Holy One is as angry with her as he probably was. She is probably as dense as you are and failed to understand the symbolic explanations given her-then blew her top when it came to the point where she couldn't fail to understand, so he kicked her out. Small wonder!'

I stopped again, muttering to myself biblical expressions I hardly thought I knew. Zeb stopped, too, and stood looking at me with a smile of cynical tolerance. 'Zeb,' I said, almost pleading with him, 'these are terrible things. Terrible! Don't tell me that you approve?'

'Approve? Man, it's all part of the Plan. I'm sorry you haven't been cleared for higher study. See here, I'll give you a rough briefing. G.o.d wastes not. Right?'

'That's sound doctrine.'

'G.o.d requires nothing of man beyond his strength. Right?'

'Yes, but-'

'Shut up. G.o.d commands man to be fruitful. The Prophet Incarnate, being especially holy, is required to be especially fruitful. That's the gist of it; you can pick up the fine points when you study it. In the meantime, if the Prophet can humble himself to the flesh in order to do his plain duty, who are you to raise a ruction? Answer me that.'

I could not answer, of course, and we continued our walk in silence. I had to admit the logic of what he had said and that the conclusions were built up from the revealed doctrines. The trouble was that I wanted to eject the conclusions, throw them up as if they had been something poisonous I had swallowed.

Presently I was consoling myself with the thought that Zeb felt sure that Judith had not been harmed. I began to feel better, telling myself that Zeb was right, that it was not my place, most decidedly not my place, to sit in moral judgment on the Holy Prophet Incarnate.

My mind was just getting round to worrying the thought that my relief over Judith arose solely from the fact that I had looked on her sinfully, that there could not possibly be one rule for one holy deaconess, another rule for all the rest, and I was beginning to be unhappy again-when Zeb stopped suddenly. 'What was that?'

We hurried to the parapet of the terrace and looked down the wall. The south wall lies close to the city proper. A crowd of fifty or sixty people was charging up the slope that led to the Palace walls. Ahead of them, running with head averted, was a man dressed in a long gabardine. He was headed for the Sanctuary gate.

Zebadiah looked down and answered himself. 'That's what the racket is-some of the rabble stoning a pariah. He probably was careless enough to be caught outside the ghetto after five.' He stared down and shook his head. 'I don't think he is going to make it.'

Zeb's prediction was realized at once, a large rock caught the man between the shoulder blades, he stumbled and went down. They were on him at once. He struggled to his knees, was struck by a dozen stones, went down in a heap. He gave a broken high-pitched wail, then drew a fold of the gabardine across his dark eyes and strong Roman nose.

A moment later there was nothing to be seen but a pile of rocks and a protruding slippered foot. It jerked and was still.

I turned away, nauseated. Zebediah caught my expression.

'Why,' I said defensively, 'do these pariahs persist in their heresy? They seem such harmless fellows otherwise.'

He c.o.c.ked a brow at me. 'Perhaps it's not heresy to them. Didn't you see that fellow resign himself to his G.o.d?'

'But that is not the true G.o.d.'

'He must have thought otherwise.'

'But they all know better; we've told them often enough.'

He smiled in so irritating a fashion that I blurted out, 'I don't understand you, Zeb-blessed if I do! Ten minutes ago you were introducing me in correct doctrine; now you seem to be defending heresy. Reconcile that.'

He shrugged. 'Oh, I can play the Devil's advocate. I made the debate team at the Point, remember? I'll be a famous theologian someday-if the Grand Inquisitor doesn't get me first.'

'Well . . . Look-you do think it's right to stone the unG.o.dly? Don't you?'

He changed the subject abruptly. 'Did you notice who cast the first stone?' I hadn't and told him so; all I remembered was that it was a man in country clothes, rather than a woman or a child.

'It was Snotty Fa.s.set.' Zeb's lip curled.

I recalled Fa.s.sett too well; he was two cla.s.ses senior to me and had made my plebe year something I want to forget. 'So that's how it was,' I answered slowly. 'Zeb, I don't think I could stomach intelligence work.'

'Certainly not as an agent provocateur,' he agreed. 'Still, I suppose the Council needs these incidents occasionally. These rumors about the Cabal and all...'

I caught up this last remark. 'Zeb, do you really think there is anything to this Cabal? I can't believe that there is any organized disloyalty to the Prophet.'

'Well-there has certainly been some trouble out on the West Coast. Oh, forget it; our job is to keep the watch here.'

Chapter 2.